“Holy shit! You sure this is the same vehicle we did the test drive in?!” Meng Ruo shouted as the Royal Snake Corporal accidentally throttled the land hovers that they had been loaned as part of the Dungeon Instance experience.
“I heard they made some adjustments afterwards! But you’re right, THIS IS AWESOME!” Zhang Min added as he smashed his land hover onto an unsuspecting Tiefling soldier before it sped off towards the siege weapons.
“Squad, Focus!” Sarge Rocher shouted through their intercoms, and his soldiers gave a resounding Yes, Sir. However, he could not deny that it was fun. When they had been tasked to fly off the floating platforms, they thought the commands from the upper management had been a bad joke.
No one dared to do that as the test run had shown a completely different result. Yet, their orders were to jump off the cliff and straight into intervening the siege weapons.
Looking at them from afar, the soldiers understood that the shields had already been strengthened by their enemies, a testimony to the adaptable algorithm Jin was using (at least that’s what they thought).
Their monster allies appeared to have come to the same conclusion. Instead of targeting those shields, they had switched to the vulnerable army at the front. The Royal Snakes who saw this knew that they had to contribute some form of help too. So, being the leader of their squad, Sarge Rocher had determined that since this was all a giant dungeon instance and given how the situation was developing, they might as well follow those seemingly crazy orders and see if these land hovers could take them.
Modelled similar to a motorcycle out of the movie Tron, the head of a land hover was reinforced to act as a battering ram so it could keep the rider safe. At the same time, it also bashed the enemy out of existence which was a hell lot of fun.
The land hover featured two internal machine guns which could be triggered with a tight squeeze of the handles, and the hover engine was similar to the Lost Tech Air Boosters that the Air Wyverns had used. Only unlike the wyverns, it only had one engine booster, but it was the revised version, allowing it to be rather durable too.
A complicated and only half visible Epic Floating Inscription along with Peppers’ magic also ensured that these land hovers could not get replicated.
These precautions were the reason the System did not mind that the commanders openly took photos of it, in hopes they could make something similar even though most of them believed it was fiction only possible to achieve in a dungeon instance setting. (Oh, if only they knew they could use it in the real world too.)
Prince Stolas didn’t doubt for a single moment that the siege weapons were the prime targets for the defenders right now. What he didn’t expect was that they could perform such outlandish yet drastic measures to go after them. He had already ordered his very own personal guards to protect the siege weapons. The old adage was true if you wanted something accomplished.
“You had to do it yourself.”
Alongside his troops, he went forth while taking necessary preparations to ensure that he would not share the fate of his elder sister being gifted a surprise hole in his head. It was a deadly gamble but seeing how the defenders had released a new form of cavalry that were speeding through to the Siege Weapons at speeds he could not fathom, it was a sign that Stolas was doing something right.
His guards who had been with him throughout the whole battle were also worried about the dangers he might face and had already raised their energy shields as high as possible to ensure no harm would come to their prince.
As for the land hovers, they too realised something was amiss after they escaped the frontlines by jumping over the floating island platforms. Upon charging through the fields of dead bodies from the Demon Army and clay statues, Sarge Rocher felt that the winds were behaving abnormally. With the speedometer sensing a change in altitude meter, there was no doubt that wind magic was being used or prepared. If they were to move as they had, it was possible the squad of land hovers might get cut in half by a sudden attack.
“All units, split up! Move along Perimeter C and go backwards! I suspect some mass wind magic is at play! We shall confuse the enemies by going after the back of their frontlines!” Sarge Rocher ordered them to do a diversionary attack and his soldiers obeyed.
True enough, a massive wind draft appeared about 10 metres away from where the land hovers had split up. Were it not for their Sarge’s keen intuition, half of the land hovers might have been destroyed. Now they used the full squad to deploy hit and run tactics to disturb the back end of the frontline, in hopes that the wind magic will die down with time.
Yet because of this delay, the siege weapons had enough time to finish charging up and fired their very first volley shots towards the sky bridge. The rocks thrown by the Trebuchets and Catapults were laden with oil, and thus when fired, the shots were lit up.
But because it was their first shot, most of the rocks missed the sky bridges vital defences and instead went into the sea or the side of the sky bridge. Some lucky shots though managed to hit the physical barricades and even destroyed a Sherman Tank.
“Fortress Golems, concentrate on smashing the incoming projectiles.” Qiu Yue commanded and relayed orders for General Hou Fei to get the land hovers to try again.
Suddenly there was an incoming message from the sky bridge’s watchtower.
“Mdm, the Giants…they seem to be congregating towards the sky bridge!” One of the Fortress Golems had noticed that even as the Giants were moving separately, their general direction was still towards the sky bridge.”
“That should be rather obvious since there is only one way to enter the floating platforms. So what’s the worry?” Qiu Yue said as she zoomed out the map and observed the patterns. There was nothing wrong with the enemies’ tactics. In fact, it was evident that the Giants were first spread out to avoid concentrated fire on them.
This was rather apparent with the emergence of Venus Four assaulting them head on, taking out one giant at a time. Qiu Yue allowed the deployment of Venus Four mainly because of Earl Barbato’s loose formation of the Giants. Else, she would not dare to waste the Pandawans’ chance in the field.
“No Mdm, he had also noticed that they were moving without care for their fellow comrades and stomping many in the process.” The Goblin operator replied. It made Qiu Yue hesitate whether she should divert the land hovers to stop the Giants first or continue to allow the Venus Four to wreak havoc to the Giant Horde.
And then she saw on her war table that the Dragon Clay Statue and Pandjilla were still near the shores away from the sky bridge waiting to get activated.
